


By Love, That First did Prompt Me

by Humanities_Handbag



Category: Strange Magic (2015)
Genre: AU, F/M, Potionless - Freeform, Three sentence fics, butterfly bog, prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3822640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humanities_Handbag/pseuds/Humanities_Handbag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"By love, that first did prompt me to inquire."</p><p>-Romeo</p><p>A series of prompts, challenges, three sentence fics and sundry. If it has been inquired, chances are it has been answered here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OTP Prompt Number 8 given by loveanimationfan:
> 
> You’re afraid that you’ll lose me in big crowds so you always hold my hand but now you just hold my hand when there’s only, like, five people around and I’m getting very suspicious

Bog constantly longed to hold her hand.

Granted, he longed for other things as well. How could he not. The sway of her hips, the earnest twist of her smile, the way she _looked_ at him - _could one person feel more adored than him when those eyes of whiskey and melted sap and sunshine turned upon him with more love than could exist in any love potion_ \-  stirred something within him that was primal and dangerous and drowning and wonderful all at once. 

And yet, staring down at her hand he realized that at that current moment it was all he really wanted. His fingers drummed at his side, claws tapping away. 

 _Claws_. 

Perhaps that was why he wanted to hold her hand. A cruel reminder of the differences between them. The deadly digits interlocking their way through slim fingers covered in skin that was stretched taut and thin ready to be unstitched far too easily. His own, meant to be the one to tear it from her body- a predator watching their prey and knowing more than anything that nature intended it to be so and hating the reasons. Simply wanting to press together the differences to find some semblance of _similar_. To prove that there was something to be had between them because _see that, we’re the same_. 

It was hard to do as they stood together in the midst of a crowd of people who looked so much like _her_. Beautiful, perfect, unmarred by scars and chips or covered in thick layers of scales and spikes. Not that she looked anything like them…

But she hardly looked like _him_. 

Her fingers twitched and he watched them, frowning. It was a ridiculous thought, really, and he shouldn’t have wanted any part of it. They were both adults. They were both new to this thing. It was wrong for him to _want…_

Wrong for him to _want_ …

Perhaps, he realized with a sad sort of clarity that it wasn’t wrong of him to want _something_  but, rather, wrong of him to want at all. 

Before he could think anything else a Fairy with teal wings, fixing the currently absent minded King with a nervous look, accidentally mistepped, stumbling into the Princess. Marianne was pushed backwards into a throng and, before he could bark at her for her clumsiness, the timid attacker was gone with an _eep_ , quickly becoming submerged into the same bustling mass of bodies that Marianne herself was still struggling to pull herself from.

A hand grabbed hers, pulling her out and she cast him a grateful smile. 

“Thanks. Didn’t know if I’d survive that one.”

“Anytime…” 

He looked down.

He was still holding her hand.

_He was still holding her hand._

“Bog? You okay?”

“I don’t want to lose you…” he rushed, lamely, his rough skin a flutter on hers. It was a week excuse. But her hand in his… _he loved it_. Want and need be damned, he loved it. The feeling of their skin pressed together, linking themselves through a simple act of affection demonstrated to the world through fingers so crudely void of similarity that he nearly let go himself, startled by just how wonderful something so odd could look. His nails, sharpened things that they were, brushed the inside of her wrist, craggily knuckles and calluses touching satiny palms. 

They shouldn’t…

_They shouldn’t…_

A rush of guilt pooled over him- _he shouldn’t want, shouldn’t want, shouldn’t want…_

But he did.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said again, flatter, grappling at the only excuse he had and wondering just how much duality he had wrongfully placed in the words.

She glanced round the room at the heavy crowd then down at their hands. He waited for her to separate, to pull away with a simple reason why she didn’t _want_ to touch him - _she knew he shouldn’t expect from her, that she held the apprehend through the sheer act that she was Marianne alone_ -but instead she wound their mismatched fingers together, tighter than what he had offered. 

“Thanks,” she chirped, “I’d hate to get lost.” And despite the tease dusting through the words he was near euphorically happy to pulse his grip and offer her a thankful smile.

“Me too.”

* * *

The second time had been at a Goblin party. 

It would seem that it was her turn to feel awkward, one arm thrown uneasily round her middle, the rest of her hunkered down trying her best to stay as absent and alert as possible. Looking round he knew that she should have looked out of place - _did look out of place_ \- as a bright shard of stained glass thrown into the dirt. The browns and the greens blended together to create the easy atmosphere of chattering Goblins, and Marianne, stunning and violet and curved and petite looked unnatural.

Though he wouldn’t say as much he rather thought she looked like she belonged. She was as much a part of his Kingdom as his subjects, and it took him time to notice just how colorful she was against a backdrop of Forest. 

A few Goblins cast her a look and she flinched, moving to take a step back. 

 _It was an accident. He had to do it. There was no other way._ The excuses poured from his brain as he leaned over and snatched her free hand in his own, tighter than he had ever done himself.

When she looked up and he rooted through his planned reasons only one came to mind. 

“You could get lost,” he told her, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. And he was rewarded with a smile, her shoulders dropping just enough to show the beginnings of ease. His own mouth quirked up. 

“Oh, obviously. You’ll _never_ see me in this crowd.” He pinched her side and she let out a trilling giggle, squirming away. “ _Jerk_.” Then she brought their locked hands to her mouth, scraping her lips across his wrist.

He had to train his joy down for the rest of the night. Truly, what would his subjects have said. 

What scared him most of all was the odd fact that he _truly_ did not care. 

* * *

The third time it was a council. They’d both agreed to attend a minimum of two from the others kingdom per month and that particular afternoon would be her second in his meeting room.

He wished she had chosen another day. 

The Elders must have been feeling especially plucky, because every comment for the past two hours had regarded the Fairy Princess seated to his right. To her credit she had done exceedingly well, hardening her composure through every jab, every insult, ever pointed question that was left almost entirely answerless. 

He had hardly had the pleasure of saying the same for himself. 

Bog had blown up nearly thrice and, from the wicked headache he was sporting there was sure to be more to come. 

He had called for a recess -a wise idea- and most of the council trickled from the room. No doubt to speak of her in private where their King could not hear their most heinous of thoughts. From the corner of his eye she watched Marianne, so strait backed and stoic moments before, slump backwards into the spare throne, deflating. 

She blinked when he grabbed her hand. 

“… Bog?”

“Uh…” because suddenly he had no excuse but _want_. Except maybe; “I don’t want you to get lost?” he tried.

“There are five people here,” she gestured round at the large, abandoned space. “I’m not getting lost, Bog. Trust me. I’d really have to try.”

“Right. Yes, Of course.” He let go and she watched his fingers scurry away as if burned, going to tap their nervous way in a symphony across the table. 

She snorted. 

“Marianne-?”

“You’re such an idiot, sometimes, you know that?”

His shoulders hissed, scales clicking as he hunched over, lip twisting. “Uh… um-”

“If you want to hold my hand, Bog, you just have to ask. In fact,” she offered her own, palm facing the ceiling, awaiting rays of sun that would never break through the thick walls, fingers twitching, “just take it. You can.”

“I- uh…”

She rolled her eyes, blowing out a sigh. “Here.” Reaching over and without any effort at all she wrapped their hands together, drawing the pair to her chest before dropping a light kiss against his knuckles. “See? Anytime.”

That time he truly couldn’t suppress his grin. And from beneath the table, as the Elders raged on, his humor changed when she gave his hand a squeeze, thumb stroking idly across his skin. 

Bog found that he rather liked getting rid of excuses. 


	2. Three Sentences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three Sentence Fics sent to me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These were a joy. Though I cheated on most and some of my sentences were big enough run-ons to destroy the page beneath them. Oh well...

_**Bookstore AU** _

“You don’t look like the type,” and she had to turn around to face the deep lilt that had addressed her, met with a towering man with a hooked nose and eyes meant to burn, one lean, pointed finger pressing the air towards the book clutched in her hands.

She turned her nose up, hugging the Phantom of the Opera closer to her chest and blinking large brown eyes up towards him, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I love this book,” she sniffed, “it’s better than most, but all books where the villain needs someone are generally easier to swallow.”

He looked surprised for a moment, blinking those huge blue eyes, until his smile slowly inched its way up his face, slanted and small, and oh so shy, and she felt her face heat up as must as his, “I agree,” he stuck his hand out, “I’m the Phantom by the way,” and he chuckled at his own joke, but both knew it wasn’t much of a joke at all, “but I’d… um… I’d love to test your theory over coffee?”

**Bonus fourth sentence:**

There would be three coffee dates before Marianne would love her Phantom and he would love her, and despite all dislike of the ending they always kept the book.

* * *

**_Dr. Who AU  
_ **

“You know, I don’t think I ever agreed to doing this,” she panted, her shoes casting feverish slaps against the roots of the Dark Forest, his following close behind, “running from strange creatures on a strange planet with a mad man.”

“And his box, Tough Girl,” he corrected, sounded infuriatingly less worried than she would have liked, “and you always wanted an adventure, I don’t see how this defies your agreements or, to be frank, your wishes,” from behind them the sound of wings buzzing in premature anger stilted their conversation, “but if I may, the TARDIS is approaching and I’d rather like for us to-”

He would have talked forever in those long, flowery sentences of his had Marianne not grabbed his hand and pulled him through the door, slamming it shut, the whirring automatically beginning it’s languid and low grumbles, “you’re an idiot,” she breathed out, looking up at the scaly skin and blue suit of the man who had stolen her from a land of almost nothing, “and that’s why I-” she would never finish, and three hearts would beat in time when his lips fell on hers and portals opened and Fairies with swords would approach an empty spot where two very odd people had been seconds before and yet had never been at all. **  
**

* * *

 

**Marriage Proposal**

She panned down from his distressed face to the papers in her hands, rustling between curious fingers, shifting and staring down at his slanting writing covering the wrinkled slopes and trenches with delicate grace and shivers of nerves and she said, “you’ve been practicing,” with just as much of a shiver- and was it from fear or from something else, but her heart was racing with every new syllable, and she added, just to make sure she was still Marianne and this wasn’t a dream, “these are ridiculously sappy,” but there was no spite, and the fear - _or whatever it was_ \- still stood.

“Yeah, for a few weeks now but…” and she heard the same quiver there too, “I know… I just… you weren’t… you were _never_ ,” and she realized then that he hadn’t intended because he was just as afraid of what she would say and rejection for both of them was distant but always clawing, “but… but I _know_ this isn’t what you want and I’d never ever make you… and…” he sighed, and then, numbly, because there was nothing else, “I didn’t know how to say it… so maybe there could be a _chance_ that-” and even he couldn’t finish, dipping his head ashamed and scared and maybe a little bit sad.

Marianne looked down once more at the piles of paper, each one different, more complex, more elaborate, more _adoring_ , and soon they were blurred together with tears she hadn’t realized she had left and too many messages became one and when she let go of the papers in favor of his hands her voice was foreign when she beamed through the words, “you could just say I love you.”

* * *

 

_**Crying (Four Sentences in the form of a Monster Drabble)** _

He would have laughed at the irony of it all if no time had passed… but time had passed and things were different and irony was far crueler than he could have ever believed, especially when it replicated your faults and threw them back at you with force and took from you everything you’d ever had, and as he flew at speeds unmatched by any past flights through the gloom, slicing through darkness and shouting empty names into hollow corners, he silently prayed for the prickings of his eyes to still themselves and stand down…

… for now was hardly the time and he was the _Goblin King_ , feared by all, and he would not allow some minor event to destroy and devastate him so fully- except this wasn’t minor… and it was doing just that… and he was beginning to realize that not even armor had the power of protection from the heavy blows dealt by invisible fists and screams in the night that even he swore had rocked him from his slumber in the sinews of the Dark Forest, the smokestacks rippling the stars with heat.

He found her first in a place caged with irony, calling out his name - _Boggy! Boggy, please help me!_ \- and the thorny prison was too easy to snap under angry fingers, and as soon as the gap was made she was around him like a vine, shivering and quaking and he can’t remember one time when she was with him where _this_ had been her reaction and he’s silently glad and when she does sob against his chest - _ripping out her insides and slitting through suffocating air_ \- he wraps his arms around the former captive who his mind betrayed him to become so fiercely protective of.

“They took her,” she’s hiccuping, “they tried to take _everyone_ and Marianne-”

“-I know,” he interrupts, “I _know_ , but she always… she always,” she did it for Dawn too, but she was never interrupted by ambushes and a cruelty made of a sword with a dull edge; just him in an empty throne room and talents matched by sparks and wit, “do you-”

“I know where she is,” Dawn whispered, breathy and hopeful, “they took her through, past me… and she was… she was so _mad_ but she was… she just wants me to be safe so she told them to take her first and-”

“-She’s-”

“Alive,” Dawn nodded, “and safe and they haven’t done anything to her yet, but she’s… she’s strong…” and Bog agrees with a nod punctuated with a breath shivering with happiness that had no place in the darkness of the underground, but he _is_ happy and for the first time in hours he’s allowing himself to believe that maybe… that _maybe_ -

-her hand swipes his cheek and he doesn’t realize that he’s been crying; letting anger and fear and frustration and _fear_ and need and _**fear**_ that’s been so tightly wound and now the pooling over of relief is pushing everything to the surface, bubbling and hissing, and he doesn’t bother to wipe away the rest of the silver streaks that claw into the cracks of scales and drip off a thorny chin and tattoo the pale etchings around eyes blue enough to be the sky the two prisoners haven’t seen in what seems like _so long_ -

-she’s worth every tear and a small part of him needs her to know that.

“Let’s go get yer sistah,” he rasps, clutching at the hilt of his staff, one arm slung around a dainty frame, tugging her along, shoulders hunched - _he looks bigger then, and uses all of it to keep her from the world because he knows that if she would fly through forest for her, then he’d do the same_ \- and he feels her shudder and clutch to his wrist and lets her hold tightly, even as her voice, so small compared to the belting of songs forever engrained into memory, whispers,

“I’m scared…”

-and he holds her tighter to his side then and knows that the _irony_ is what’s thickening the air in his lungs and not the agreement - _I’m scared too_ \- as they near the sound of a Boggart’s voice rumbling deeply down to a fairy brought to her knees against a stone floor, and Bog presses Dawn into a corner and tells her, “stay here, and don’t make a sound,” because he will keep her as safe as her sister had wanted her when _he_ had been the one on enemy grounds-

-when he didn’t love _Marianne_ -

-and when he wasn’t so prepared to fight for something he never felt privileged enough to cry for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are more! But those will go in another time!


	3. What If: A Series of Questions in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Bog questions worth based on worth that never needed questioning.

I wont actually do a parent fic for a  _looooong_  time. But after last night, how could I  _not_  at least do  _this_! Sorry for the crap writing! This was a five minute project, and so it turned out to be more word vomit than anything else.

* * *

“What if they can’t fly?” He asked into the darkness, hand drawing round her hip. He felt her sigh against his shoulder. There was no frustration there, only content for questions being asked where silence had promised to reside. 

“Then we’ll carry them.” she said against scales. “We’ll take them everywhere. And they’ll go on so many adventures. And they’ll get to do everything.”

He swallowed, blinking towards her, only finding the subtle shape of her hair and the curve of her torso under blankets. “Well… what if people try and hurt them?” Because he’d been hurt before. And what they had, together, was never easy. It never became easy. it would continue to be  _not easy_.

“Then you’ll protect them.” She said automatically, and  _not easy_  didn’t seem to find its way into the tone and he wondered if he should have pointed out that she forgot it. “We’ll protect them together,” she continued, ignoring his worry. “That’s what we do now. So we’d do it for them. And we’d teach them how to fight. And they’ll be able to take care of themselves.” She paused, pondered. “But… they’ll always be able to come back to us, too.”

“What if  _I_ scare them.”

“Not possible.” Marianne shook her head, and her hair brushed the moss. “You’d never. Not really. Not like you’re thinking.”

He nodded, and his breath fluttered out in a distressed curtain call. Because he was trying to find the lie. Trying to find the one piece of  _evidence_  to push her away. To finally be able to say,  _aha! I knew I’d never be worth it._ But there was none, and the anger that boiled in his chest fixed itself to fear as quickly as it had come, evaporating scalding, burning away at his insides. 

Because he needed to  _know._  Needed to find the one thing that would prove to her that he’d never be worth what she seemed to allow. Never live up to the strange adoration that she distributed like primroses growing on a border with no place. Because he knew what he was afraid of.

“What if they look like me?” He asked. 

And he knew that would be it.

There was silence. And then there was shuffling. He nearly gasped when long fingers cradled his face, her elbows propped against his chest, and he wound his arms round her, needed to feel all of her against him. Needed to prove that something would always be the same.

When her lips found his brow, his jaw, his lips, he was left speechless underneath a truth he hadn’t wished to find, and had been scared would forever be placed our of reach.

“if they look like you?” she asked, soft and sweet and questioning. He swallowed again, claws draping down the dunes of her spine. 

“ _Marianne_ …”

“If they look like you…” she said again, and he could finally hear the wonder in her voice. The reels of spinning pictures floating through her head, constructing images of something that was to be, wasn’t to be, could be,  _had_  to be.

She kissed him again, and this time he could feel the smile.

“Then they’ll be beautiful…” she whispered. 

Bog held her for the rest of the night and vowed for what must have been the millionth spinning rotation of axises and orbits and words repeated with  _I love you I love you I love you_  into darkness so secure the stars were all held in her grip, that he would never let her go. And she held him back, moving down scales and the ridges of his brow with the low hums and vows of a beauty that she claimed he was. That he had. That he glowed. That he  _denied_. 

That she  _decreed_ with a fluency that left him speechless every time. An honesty that he could never compete. A trust formed through thorns and blue poppies and learning to never hold back Princesses with eyes that are rarely false.

More than a perfect moonlight that she was ready to share and a Strange Magic of something that was to come. 


End file.
